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As an ectomorph/hardgainer/skinny guy, it is already difficult for you to put on some muscle mass. Add to the fact that so many hardgainers base their ectomorph workouts on wrong principles and concepts and now you why so many complain that hardgainers can never put on muscles. It's not just because they are ectomorphs (who have high metabolism rate), it's also because they are doing the wrong ectomorph workouts.

If you have been doing some research in designing a good ectomorph workout, I'm sure you would have had found many information sources online. For those of you who don't have a solid understanding in the area of how to grow muscles, it may be information overload for you, and might even lead to further misconceptions.

Using this article, I would like to present to you (and not spam you) only the most important errors and misconceptions made by hardgainers in the gym (I'm not touching on nutrition) which will significantly affect the effectiveness of your ectomorph workout.

1. Copying a bodybuilder's workout routine

Number one reason why most hardgainers fail with their workout routine, and which I was equally guilty of committing in my early days of weight training. Just because a workout routine worked for Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't mean it will work for you. And just because Men's Health say do this workout (and they have thousand of variations to fill the pages of their mag) doesn't mean it will work for you! These workouts just don't work for ectomorphs with the average genes and who don't take drugs.

Most workout routines split up the individual parts into let's say chest day on Monday, shoulders on Tuesday, legs on Wednesday, back on Thursday and arms on Friday. Sounds logical? Yes, but it just doesn't work that way for ectomorphs. Ectomorphs take more time to recover fully, and strength training works better for them than pure isolation exercises. Strength training refers to the doing of compound exercises and I have another article on that hosted here which you can peruse.

2. Not resting and recovering enough

Split routines are all the rage as this allows people to hit the gym on more days. They think that by doing so, you gain more muscle mass faster. FALSE! Your muscles grow only when you are resting and recovering! I was guilty of going to the gym 5 days a week in the past and it led to over training and I was burned out. The realisation came when I hit a plateau and just didn't feel right. I had a friend advise me to take a whole week of training off and to only go to the gym on alternate days. It worked a treat! I could suddenly start lifting heavier, and was able to sustain this progressive overload concept to build muscle mass.

Ectomorphs tend to take longer to recover, so remember to give your body a rest! A tip is to take a full week off maybe once every 4 to 6 weeks. The concept of resting is way underrated and not promoted enough in the bodybuilding world.

3. Thinking that feeling a "pump" in your muscles means that you have to trained effectively

I was guilty of this too, as I always trained until I could feel the "pump" in my muscles before I changed to the next exercise. Now, to put things into perspective, doing 200 reps of a 4.4lbs dumbbell will definitely give you a feeling of "pump", but does it make your muscles grow? Hell no! A "pump" is caused by trapped blood and lactic acid, and these won't make your muscles grow. I would advise to use that feeling as a gauge of how well you have been targetting the muscles you want, and not as an indicator of the effectiveness of your workout.

4. Training to failure instead of progressively overloading

Common mistake committed not just by ectomorphs, but newbies to bodybuilding and weight training. The most fundamental principle to muscle growth is progressive overload, that I cannot stress more. It does not matter if you use the same weight every training session and work till failure, you simply won't grow. If you hit a plateau, modify your workout routine or take a week off and I guarantee you will see improved results.

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